So, Apple held its usual autumn press get-together just now, and after a few rather uninspiring ones (to me, at least), they finally managed to blow me away, with the new MacBook Air (especially the 11.6" variant). They also gave a sneak peek at Mac OS X 10.7 Lion, which has... An App Store. An App Store Apple is going to open on Snow Leopard within 90 days.

Were does Apple give the version number? All they said was the OS is going to be the next version of OS X and that it will be named "Lion". You have made a giant leap to 10.7 there. I don't doubt it will be 10.7, but that version number was NOT released at the keynote yesterday and is NOT on the product page.

Steve Jobs listed the different felidae (cats) ascribed to the different versions; these amounted up to 7, with "Lion" being number 8 (note that the version number is NOT 10.8, because there first was an OSX 10.0)

This is already plenty of reason to assume that in the logical line of using felidae as names for the OSX series, it will be the follow-up to 10.6 and not the first one in a new series (i.e., 11.0).

Another reason to assume this one will be 10.7 is because of the way Apple treats its life cycles: they alternate releases between features and functionality. Snow Leopard was really aimed at consolidating the system's backbone, without many noticeable changes to the users. It was to be expected that Lion would be focused on adding new features.

Thirdly, and this should be obvious enough: the amount of "major changes" is not sufficient to say the next release is fit for being the first one of a brand new series; it isn't very different from Snow Leopard in look and feel. Personally I believe the Mac OS 11 series will be all-Cocoa, 64-bit-only, SSD-only, and ZFS-based, and I deem Apple keen enough to already have a team working on that for quite some time now.

In summary: there is no need to assume they will call it anything other than 10.7 and you can derive that from every aspect of the version's place in the system's life cycle.

Steve Jobs listed the different felidae (cats) ascribed to the different versions;....

Yes... all well documented...

This is already plenty of reason to assume that in the logical line of using felidae as names for the OSX series, it will be the follow-up to 10.6 and not the first one in a new series (i.e., 11.0).

Is there? Show me this evidence. Again, this is all pure conjecture. Sure, it might be true. Apple *might* create a 7" iPad. Apple *might* create an App Store for the AppleTV. Apple *might* create an iPhone for CDMA. All of this is however, speculative at best.

Another reason to assume this one will be 10.7 is because of the way Apple treats its life cycles: they alternate releases between features and functionality. Snow Leopard was really aimed at consolidating the system's backbone, without many noticeable changes to the users. It was to be expected that Lion would be focused on adding new features.

Sure, each version up to SL added features and improved (in Apples rhetoric) on the prior version. SL was the first "stabilisation and feature freeze" version (though that is still not exactly true, as we all know - they changed stuff still.) So, I do believe what you are saying. But, still, Lion is the first version of OS X that will begin the convergence between Cocoa and Cocoa touch API. I fully expect we developers will move from the old Cocoa "NS" GUI API, steeped in NextStep, to the new world "UI" GUI API.

Thirdly, and this should be obvious enough: the amount of "major changes" is not sufficient to say the next release is fit for being the first one of a brand new series; it isn't very different from Snow Leopard in look and feel. Personally I believe the Mac OS 11 series will be all-Cocoa, 64-bit-only, SSD-only, and ZFS-based, and I deem Apple keen enough to already have a team working on that for quite some time now.

Really? Really, really? Do you really believe "Cocoa" has a future? I don't. I believe (as mentioned above) we will move to the iOS style API.

In summary: there is no need to assume they will call it anything other than 10.7 and you can derive that from every aspect of the version's place in the system's life cycle.

There's no proof they will call it 10.7 either. 10.6, when announced, was called 10.6 right off the bat. As I stated - where is there a version number on *any* of Apple's current Lion marketing? Nowhere. I'm sure you may well be right, but it's still way, way too early to be able to know exactly what their plans are.